How to promote the destruction of your digestive system:
America's love affair with high protein low fiber diets is slowly destroying the digestive systems of the elderly. Some popular diet books that promote this argue that cave men ate a lot of animal protein, therefore, humans were designed by nature to eat this way. But cave men didn't live long enough to develop the slow destruction of their intestines and the gradual depletion of their digestive enzymes.
Most doctors won't recommend colonoscopies after age 80 partly because the colon wall gets thinner and thinner with age. Likewise, the wall of the entire digestive tract gets thinner. Consequently, a diet high in animal protein and low in fiber tends to get packed down hard as it passes through your system and can rupture your intestines. It's called diverticulitis.
And diverticulitis in the elderly may be complicated by a lack of digestive enzymes. This is likely to happen gradually as people age.
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